China yesterday fired back at the US over allegations from the White House that Beijing withheld some information about the COVID-19 pandemic from WHO investigators.
In a statement on Friday, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Washington had “deep concerns about the way in which the early findings of the COVID-19 investigation were communicated and questions about the process used to reach them.”
“It is imperative that this report be independent, with expert findings free from intervention or alteration by the Chinese government,” he said, referring to the WHO mission investigating the origins of the pandemic in Wuhan, China, where the novel coronavirus was first detected late in 2019.
“To better understand this pandemic and prepare for the next one, China must make available its data from the earliest days of the outbreak,” Sullivan’s statement said.
China responded with a statement from its Washington embassy yesterday, saying the US had already “gravely damaged international cooperation on COVID-19 and was now “pointing fingers at other countries who have been faithfully supporting the WHO and at the WHO itself.”
While it welcomed US President Joe Biden’s decision to reverse former US president Donald Trump’s administration’s move to leave the WHO, China hopes the US would “hold itself to the highest standards, take a serious, earnest, transparent and responsible attitude, shoulder its rightful responsibility, support the WHO’s work with real actions and make due contribution to the international cooperation on COVID-19,” the statement said.
Following allegations of Chinese withholding of data in the New York Times and other media outlets, investigation team member Peter Daszak wrote on Twitter: “This was NOT my experience on @WHO mission.”
“As lead of animal/environment working group I found trust & openness w/ my China counterparts. We DID get access to critical new data throughout. We DID increase our understanding of likely spillover pathways,” Daszak wrote.
Another team member, Thea Koelsen Fischer of Denmark, also said that had not been her experience and implied some comments had been misrepresented in the media.
“We DID build up a good relationship in the Chinese/Int Epi-team! Allowing for heated arguments reflects a deep level of engagement in the room. Our quotes are intendedly twisted casting shadows over important scientific work,” Fischer wrote.
While in Wuhan, Koelsen Fischer said she did not get to see the raw data and had to rely on an analysis of the data that was presented to her.
However, she said that would be true in most countries.
The British-born Daszak, a zoologist who now works in New York, affirmed Fischer’s remarks, writing on Twitter: “It’s disappointing to spend time w/ journalists explaining key findings of our exhausting month-long work in China, to see our colleagues selectively misquoted to fit a narrative that was prescribed before the work began. Shame on you @nytimes.”
Daszak earlier told reporters that the WHO team enjoyed a greater level of openness than they had anticipated, and that they were granted full access to all sites and personnel they requested.
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